Well, it's 1:21 AM and I'm still up and only moderately tired. The pony arrived today; he's quite small but very gentle. I don't think it'll be any trouble at all to train him. I cycled into town, got groceries, and after dinner and milking started on two oil paintings. One is of a tree/landscape, the other is a large nectarine. I used to think of nectarines as sort of androgynous, but I've revised my opinion of them. They're quite sensuous fruits that simply get overshadowed by their very female sister the peach. They've got a little more acidity and firmness to them, too. Maybe I could actually grow to prefer them to peaches. Perhaps.

Random thought for tonight- when people feel driven to fulfill societiy's expectations and demands, why do they do it? Do they feel obligated to do so out of duty? Who defines these epectations? Consensus. Why would anyone want to live that that and how can they bear to do it?? If they want to do XYZ that's fine, but simply to do it because everybody does XYZ and that's the way it's done? What do they have to look forward to or to strive towards? Why don't they ever question it? Are they afraid? Or merely complacent?

My dad always told me I had to be conventional. I couldn't do it and never actually tried...He used to say that wherever I went, it'd be the same, that people wouldn't accept me, that I'd have to jump through hoops and do things the normal way. Being stubborn, I had to try to prove him wrong. The truth of the matter is that I've got no tolerance for people who don't make the slightest attempt to think for themselves, and I care very little whether they approve of me or not! Except, he was right. in a way. It is lonely, and I don't fit in anywhere. His mistake was in thinking I could be anything else.

Yes. The reason they do it, the reason they conform, is that life is less kind for the outsider. They're bound together by a sort of permanent, pervasive, and lifelong peer pressure. Herd animals.